the very few keepers from todays soccer game

i think ill be putting todays shoot up as a loss for me with lots of out of focus shots. i not blaming anything but i do find myself disappointed and not wanting todo sports anymore. i dont think its my camera at fault since it has not performed this poorly with not locking focus before in the past. i think im taking a break from sports to prevent further disappointment. ill do basketball with my 30 when the season starts and hope it shoots well

total of 18 keepers out of 487

i also missed a lot of action today which is from being rusty but i also have a bunch of shots that could have been great action but were just out of focus

even these "keepers" look seriously out of focus. What lens did you use?

a sigma 70-200 2.8 macro mkII. i think it was the cheapo $800 sigma because it performed terribly and its build quality just was not top notch like the expensive versions of 70-200 2.8's


thankfully it was a borrowed lens, i would be very mad if these photos were taken with glass that i paid for.

Might of been front / back focussing, nothing a focus fine tune wouldn't fix. The 7D has that doesn't it?

Don't let 1 bad day ruin your motivation!

yea my 7D has it and i tried to MA on the fly but all the shots that are out of focus are not consistent they are random some back focus some completely miss focus and nothing is sharp and others just focus way out to infinity. majority of my shots are lined up and i know my AF point was on the players.

i was linked to a thread where other 7D users are having trouble with this specific lens. so im thinking its the lens and if i do expensive telephoto its going to be canon brand

im not hating sigma but im disappointed with the one i borrowed today

I have been burned by sigma before back when I used to shoot pentax. Since buying into canon, I don't use sigma anymore.

Don't let one bad day ruin your spirit. Seriously. We have all had bad days, but the great thing about this type of photography is that every day is different and the next may be the one where you get that "money shot" you hang on your wall. You just won't know until you go out there and shoot. Part of the fun for me is fine tuning my craft. Adjusting on the fly if necessary and challenging myself to take the best photos I can. Some days are better than others, but it's all worth it when everything goes right .

my problem is i dont have the money to use or get the glass to really help shoot field sports. i can still do basketball though which i look forward to.

Shoot when they are close to you. When they are not, enjoy the game!

i tried too but wasted most of the time trying to figure out why the lens was missing all my shots. was extremely frustrating considering i borrowed the lens from the people who are going to pay me for the photos

i wish i had a 70-200 mkII with a 1.4X that would have made shooting this game soo easy

great facial expressions

Brian, what was your settings on these soccer pictures? That lens should give you better photos?

i shot high speed continuous. ISO 200 f2.8 variable shutter speeds 1/2000 and 1/2500. single center point AF servo evaluative metering.

it was able to take just ok test shots of players standing still, none were tack sharp. did test shots on my friends during half time and did test headshots of them at 70mm and 200mm and those were TACK sharp

im told that possibly the AF servo tracking speed was too fast and could have caused focus problems when tracking. but my problem is that it was set at 0(default) and never had trouble tracking with a canon 70-200 nor my 28-135 that i started shooting sports with(that lens was just terrible for soccer DOF too deep and cant reach the field very far)

i am going to speak with athletics at school this wednesday for compensation for older photos i took at games and the 18 that i took yesterday. and if they pay me enough and agree to keep buying my photos ill go buy a 70-200 either f4 or 2.8 depending on how much they pay me. and if they dont make it worth my while i just wont do field sports any more and ill buy a 85 1.8 and continue doing portraits and obviously basketball which ill use my 30 1.4 and 85 for

well, good luck getting paid for those photos...

ewheeler20 wrote in post #13018797
well, good luck getting paid for those photos...

i have other photos that are considerably better than the ones posted that are poorly captured because of what i think is now user error mixed with a possibly malfunctioning lens

Hi Brian:

Understand your frustration. Here are a couple of suggestion to help you out with the 7D.

First, go to the EOS camera forum and search for the 7D setup threads. There are probably a few. What your looking for is all the cfn (custom function) settings to be sure your 7D is setup properly for sports shooting.

Second, is the camera set for back button (* button) for continuous focus? If not, definitely assign the camera's focus chore to that button. Leave it mashed down constantly while tracking action and shooting.

Lastly, you should do some testing with your 7D to make sure it's focusing properly and not a victim of the 'random focus' issues some have had with the 7D body. If you'd like more info on this let me know and I'll shoot you a PM. During the test, you can also micro adjust your 70-200 to the body. Adjusting on the fly is futile. I tried it.

dave